April 2024 Update

Hello everyone,

I’ll just be honest and upfront as usual. Alex, who joined the project a couple months ago, has gone MIA and hasn’t answered messages from me in weeks. On top of this, I’ve been distracted with an ongoing family medical issue so I’ve not been able to stay on top of the progress, if there is any. Development has temporarily stalled. Temporarily being the key word there.

This week, I will be looking into the state of the project and continuing on with the plan of creating a demo video to be published on YouTube as soon as possible. I’m not going to put a timeline on it for now as that apparently doesn’t work out well. The demo video will likely feature some smoke and mirrors as I will not be focusing on motion of the ship or any physics beyond what I have to, to make the video.

I know a lot of you have already paid in to the project in one form or another. I want to spell this out clearly so there’s no confusion. My intent is to release the reboot as an update to the existing game. This means that if you already own the game on Steam, you’ll receive the reboot for free, assuming that can be worked out with ISI. Ideally, Michael’s version will become a “beta” branch that you can select and revisit at any time. This is contingent on ISI allowing and being able to support these decisions. I’m not in this to make money but money does make working on the game easier. If you can afford to drop a few bucks my way to help spur on the development, please visit https://ko-fi.com/feidry and make a donation or sign up for monthly recurring donations.

Whether there’s money coming in or not, I will work on this project until its done or the rest of my life if need-be. Money just helps speed things along or could allow me to hire those skills I don’t personally possess.

I’m not mad at Alex for disappearing. I expected it. That’s just the nature of volunteer contributions. I’m thinking of a way to lean into that aspect, to make it a strength of the project. Open-sourcing isn’t really an option being that its a commercial game but there have been many people express interest in contributing whom I’ve, up until this point, turned away as I felt that we already had a full team. I’m not sure what all the answers are there yet but if you have any game development experience, please reach out. Just reply to this email, it comes directly to me. I’d also be interested in hearing from legal professionals who have experience in the realm of IP law and contribution agreements, though keep in mind that there’s no money to pay for such services.

Thank you for your continued support.

-Feidry